The invention concerns balloons and inflatables, in general, and more particularly, balloons and inflatables with additional interior display surfaces.
Balloons and inflatables are well known, and have been for hundreds of years. They are useful as toys, novelties, sports equipment, among other utilities, in the field of recreation. They are used for meteorology, in particular when atmospheric weather conditions are being recorded and determined. They are useful in the advertising field, in sizes from simple latex balloons with a drawing or likeness or words printed on the outside, up to gigantic blimps and dirigibles, such as e.g. the famous "Goodyear Blimp". In addition, balloons and inflatables have been used for numerous medical purposes, in particular in the field of surgery, for example, to temporarily open up closed blood vessels.
It is a major problem with the use of balloon surfaces for advertising purposes that, inasmuch the outside surfaces are spherical or at least cylindrical, the curved surface distorts the advertising, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, limits the visual field to what can be seen without moving the head from side to side, which is only a fraction of the e.g. hemisphere which faces the viewer. Moreover, aside from actually distorting the image, it is unnatural to read words or view pictures or likenesses that are drawn on a curved surface.